The Final Question
by GronHatchat
Summary: A look into Edward Nygma, and why he hates his love for himself.
1. Chapter 1

Gotham City. A metropolis like so many others, and a metropolis that was completely devoid of the expectations of normality. Gotham City, the beacon of the Southwest, the black light of the criminal underworld. Gotham City, the nest to the ugly, and the mountain of the powerful, even when the nest was set upon the mountainside did the light dim and shine with black luminance and brilliant white emphasis. It was not heads, and never tails. It was both sides of the coin, and with each flip came an outcome that could never be predicted.

The island was set out to sea, a haven of the squawking crows of the city, where good men felt fear, where fear felt pressure to exert itself, and where the pressure was the gambit of the local residents. That fear held the place together, that island so avoided and spat upon by the minds of Gotham City's patrons. A mansion, surrounded by several structures, each with their own stories, their own purposes, and whether these purposes were dark or light, little mattered, because the island was what it was meant to be, and what it would always be: the land of the lords of Gotham. That island was Arkham Island, and that castle that gave the patrons such place and meaning in their internal demeanors was Arkham Asylum, a short name, but one that carried much meaning.

The castle was a home. That dark castle with its non-existant towers, it patrolling guards who were not wrapped in the navy blue of the law, but the black and white of the chaos that they were: criminally insane and so beautiful. He was beautiful, with his Gasglove smile, his matted green hair, his chalk white complexion and the laughter that he produced as natural instinct, and yet he was alone, cold in his mind because the joy was coldness, though he did not know it. She was beautiful, her long red hair flowing with such grace and yearning, adorned with a crown of leaves that bore prominence with her bright green eyes and lips laced with crippling poison, for she was what she was, a poison that had arms and legs, lost in her mesomaniasm. And then there was him, deluded by his own unique ability, his ingenuity that knew several bounds and no bounds, constantly lost in what he was, a "god" he said of the natural mind, but behind that vision of his "god-like" state was the integrity of his chains, which held him in place, again and again, locked tightly by the hand of the night oppressor, the Batman, as they called him. Jack was happy, Pamela was wrathful, but Edward...Edward was afraid. Very afraid. He did not want people forgetting who he was. What he was.

"Tell me, Dark Knight," he had once said to his oppressor, the man hidden in the shadow of his own fear, "if I were the Joker, would you hold me with some form of respect? If I were Jonathon Crane, would you fear me above all others? If I were Pamela Isley, would you feel an unwanted, yet undeniable, desire towards my continued existance?"

He had spoken so softly, had asked the questions so calmly, because he had been terrified. Horribly afraid, and yet, that aspect of his self-love and highly honored image had held him firmly on the place of his pedestal. _Edward, sit up straight, darn it! This is twelfth grade physics not kindergarten nap time! "_Yes, Mr. Lawrence, I'm sorry. It's just that your lecture on astronomical height growth seems to be missing some of your own ego. Perhaps you would like to explain again why you were placed to teach us a subject you barely know anything about?"That had made me smile. And that smile had not left his face, for the longest time, even when he was dragged into Principal Brumley's office for a good thrashing with the fiberglass paddle that he had made friends with so many times before. And with each strike, the pain was friend. A pleasure to him. For it proved him right. Ingenuity made others nervous, jealous, even, and thus it forced them to devolve into the primal ways of the neanderthals. _Edward...you're going back to Arkham. I will personally drag you there and ensure that you stay there until your time has come. Do you understand?_ And nothing. No words. No retorts. That was because Mr. Lawrence was a dismal, non-existant phanomenan that had been dissolved by Edward Nygma's own intellectual superiority. This voice, however, belonged to the Oppressor, and the Oppressor's word was law, even for Edward. Edward loved the command, because he hated it so much. He was two sides of the same coin. Move over, Harvey, the coin has a new master...yes...yes...

"No, Edward. I would look at you, calmly, and tell you what I have always told you. I am going to take you home...and ensure that you stay there until your time has come."

"Indeed, Dark Knight? Why would you continue the repetition?"

"Because life is repetition, Edward. Surely your intellect knows that. It just has longer words on the occasion."

"Don't try to cheek me, Dark Knight." There was desperation in his voice now. Fear was the name, but the Oppressor was beyond fear. He breathed the fear, produced it, yet he was a slave to it all the same. And if the Oppressor was a slave to himself, to that aspect of fear, then what was Edward? A dismal, non-existant phanomenan dissolved by the Oppressor's sincerity and simplicity. Edward Nygma had become Arnold Lawrence. He was not the Riddler, in the Oppressor's presence. He was simply Lawrence, caught in the unending, spiraling web of his self-gratification, not the "god" that he had wanted to be. The Oppressor had taken that from him. Edward Nygma hated the Oppressor...hated him and idolized him. The Dark Knight was a dirty mirror. Move over, Hugo, there is a new master of the delusional, pitious loss of self and placement. "Don't try to cheek me, no! I'm superior!"

"To whom? To me?"

"N-yes! YES, I SAY!" The screaming voice had almost ruptured the very structure of the intercom system. But the Oppressor had not minded. Loud noises in Gotham City? This was a slighty whisper. The Oppressor had then given Edward a look, as the dark clad man had peered into the windowed, boxed in area, high above the stacked crates of this abandoned warehouse near the port (crates that held three hostages, each of them dead already, though the Oppressor did not know it), and the Oppressor knew that Edward Nygma hid behind that dark glass, tinted to hide the green but green was a standout color. Edward watched, in awe, in obsessive glee that was fired by his hatred of the Oppressor, as the Dark Knight aimed what appeared to be a gun. Whatever bullets the dark rodent possessed, they would penetrate the bulletproof glass that the Riddler hid behind, and he knew it. The Oppressor had gotten through his other traps that littered the warehouse. Edward had been denied his chance to watch the Oppressor die. It had been something worthy of climax, to see that death, because it proved that he was not Lawrence...no...he could never be Lawrence...

The shot. Loud, echoeing in the empty chamber, aimed for the glass, striking it with fierce intensity that it made a trembling vibration run into Edward's very skin, yet such a soft thump on the window. Indeed, he had aimed for the window, not the crates. Edward had been so sure that the Oppressor knew that the hostages were inside. Then he did know that Edward had already killed them, each with a bullet to the head, each a broken promise to the Oppressor, their blood the ink that signed the false contract between Riddler and Knight, their corpses the end result of a nasty business partnership. Their usefulness as bait for the bombs triggered inside of the crates had lost its course. They were merely corpses now, not the beautiful tools that he had imagined them being. And so he took the knife at his side, a large, Metropolis made hunting dagger, and prepared his mind, calmed his body, leveled his perception. The shot had not broken the glass, but it had, as the Riddler knew it...as Lawrence knew it...broken something. A promise that the Riddler had made to himself that very evening, that he would prove his superiority, that he had fooled the Oppressor. _They're alive, Dark Knight, but you had better hurry. We only have fifteen minutes until the final round of this game. Wouldn't want you to be left out of the finale. The grand prize is going to be huge! Fifteen minutes, Dark Knight. They're waiting for you...screaming for you. An accountant, a stripper, and a mob enforcer, oh, what a beautiful score of contestants we have today, but none so beautiful as the winged freak himself, the Dark Knight of Gotham's finest patrons! _

Should he have cut himself? Would it have killed Lawrence? What would be left? A dead Lawrence, or an ascended Riddler? Edward Nygma, who are you? WHO THE HESSIAN ARE YOU!? He had shot again. The screaming voice inside told him so, as a slightly thouder thump hit the window. Edward had brought the knife to his wrist. Whose blood!? Lawrence's or Edward's!? LAWRENCE'S OR EDWARD'S!?

There was bat flying towards the window now, the largest of the bats, the King Aladruc. The grappling hook. Abomination slithers in the skull of what Edward detested, of meager device. A grappling hook was what ascended the Oppressor. Not ingenuity, not the murder of any man named Lawrence (Edward's first kill was a haunting expression of his love for himself), and certainly not the knowledge of superiority. It was a device, mechanical in its essence, man-made, a tool of the neanderthals. Edward hated him. Hated him like no other, because he was a shadow of the Oppressor, and he was the living image of Edward Nygma...

SMASH! Whatever the Oppressor had hit the glass with prior to using the grappling hook, it had somehow decreased the density of the glass. The Oppressor, his wings spread with a desire to feast upon a Lawrence, landed not on his feet but on his back as he rolled forward, Edward finding himself pressed firmly against the wall beside the door leading out of the box, where the elevator had waited him, called him, beggining him to take it down to the lower harbor dock where his boat awaited, complete with the most prestigous library ever to be placed on a small yacht, and yet he had remained there, in the box, glued by his own desire to have the Oppressor fall and admit that he was in fact Edward, and not Mr. Lawrence. No...not Lawrence...

He had been placed firmly against the wall, had felt the cold blades press firmly against his neck, ever so slightly on the ends were their malice, not penetrating, not giving comfort. Cold warnings, empty souls themselves, a part of the Oppressor. Edward had slowly raised the knife. Even in the dark, Edward saw light. A fire was burning. It was in the Oppressor's black slits where the shadows hid his eyes. They were roaring with life, fire unyielding, un-iced. Stay away, Victor, you may melt by this intensity.

The Oppressor did not speak a word. He merely waited. Edward had no heart, however, as he sunk it, quite slowly, into the Oppressor's left ab. But the blade of the well furbished knife bended leftwards. There's the warranty. He had released it, for the knife was nothing to him. It had clattered loudly to the floor, filling the lifelfess, soundless chamber with war drums.

"They're dead, you know," Edward Nygma had whispered.

"I know, Edward," whispered the Oppressor. "I killed them."

"What are you talking about!?" Edward had snapped.

"I killed them," he had returned, a little louder this time, "the moment I decided to cross your path."

"Revel in it, Dark Knight," Mr. Lawrence whispered. "You're below me. I tricked you. Admit it. Tell me that I'm better."

The words had to come. They must come. A testament must be made to his superiority. But the Oppressor answered with words that Edward had feared.

"I am going to take you home, Edward, and I am going to make sure you stay there until your time comes."

Edward had not snapped. That bridge was in the past. The smile was now. Joker, hit the road, your smile was now his, Edward's...not Lawrence's...

"I hate me..."

"We're going home now. I'm going to take you home." The Oppressor did not sound fierce. He did not sound as if he were trying to be threatning. That was the natural aspect of him. He sounded calm, almost as fearful as Edward. The Dark Knight really was human, wasn't he? That wicked Oppressor who had stoped Edward so many time before, always brining him back to the island, to the castle, where his friends were...they were his friends, right? The way Ivy looked at him...what kind of lust was it? The way Joker stuck his tongue out at him? What joke had the mad man come up with then? The way the Penguin squawked at him, though the fat bird was the only one who seemed natural, being what he is, what he was meant to be. He did not want to go back to that place.

"Kill me!" Not a request. A demand.

"I will," the Oppressor agreed. "I will as soon as I drop you off at home."

Edward Nygma screamed. Arnold Lawrence laughed.

And where was Edward Nygma now? He was at home, that's where he was. With the smiley man laughing at him, with the lusty vine queen laughing softly at him, blowing him a kiss, with the cold one, rolling his eyes and bringing his attention back to the daily paper. And Mr. Lawrence waved at him, sitting across the cell from Edward. But Edward could not have any of it. A rock beside his bed. A rock smuggled from within, from the botanical gardens. Its toss was fierce, the shattering of the mirror over the sink was fiercer. Maybe he would cut himself with the glass later, if the guards failed to get it all up. He had to be Edward Nygma. He had to be the superior one...the Oppressor could not stop him...


	2. Chapter 2

The Riddler. Poison Ivy. Joker. Mr. Freeze. Mad Hatter. The gullible Firefly. The fat, squawking Penguin. The stupid Zsaas whose knife was bigger than his brain. The facking Ventriloquist! That annoying Harley Quinn! The dame Arkham himself. All of them so stupid, low, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid stupid stupid beautiful stupid stupid stupid stupid!...

"Hey!" And that annoying voice. Danny Wilkerson. Kill him, later. Admire the thought. "Be quiet in there!"

"Why don't you facking make me." Such a response, fire and ice behind every syllable. Poetry. Iambic triameter. Beauty in the making. Defy him more. Defy him every night.

"What did you say to me?" Ah, defiance in return, but fear tone. It stained his pronunciation. The vocal chords, of course, would have to be removed. He needed a new tie, anyway. Waylon Jones….

"Do you have a hearing problem? I said, make me be quiet." The first pawn moves out, as the dark man, silhouetted just beyond the icy bars, shifts uncomfortably, but also is trembling, because he cannot tolerate the defiance, as he cannot tolerate the thought of stepping into the cell of the madman.

"I'm going to call Dr. Peters for a shot if you don't be quiet." Ha! The volley was not so strong. The threat of an anesthetic. He smelled the fear, stronger than ever, for it was his making. The man wanted any excuse not to enter, because he knew that the caged beast wanted him to come to him. Food was so scarce, and the man was looking tasty. His fear was so deductible in its scent. Jonathon Crane…

"At least Dr. Peters knows how to touch a man. What about you, Danny? Do you remember how to touch a man?" A gay jab. He had sunk down to that level, but it was all for gain of the moment. A distraction. Something that would drive a man over the edge. The silhouette was furiously shaking now, harder than ever. Fists were clenched. The time was coming soon. Riddle me this, riddle me that, what can make this man sing? Oh that! "Ah, of course, you wouldn't remember, would you? Not since I killed Tommy Bearing. You two were close, weren't you?"

"SHUT UP!" A scream. A beautiful scream, as much as an annoyance. Did he need that scream? No. But at least it was affecting the man. He was degenerating, falling further than ever before, losing his touch. A rookie he was not. Twelve years at Arkham, a veteran. And yet the man was falling victim to the king's charms. He had a hand on the bar now, the other hand on his nightstick. The king, meanwhile, sat on his bed, calmly, still as a statue, waiting for the hammer's fall. "You hear me, you piece of vermin! Shut up! I'm not going to have you talking about Tommy! Don't you dare insult him!"

"Of course you'd say that, I gunned him down right in front of his own children. Your partner for seven years. Seven? Not so impressive. Now, tell me, did Tommy and you…you know…ever get it on? I mean, you can tell me. I'm just a maniac, no one would believe me." The implication of homosexual relations between two men who had been friends since childhood, one of whom had been brutally murdered by the very man who sat in this cell, right in front of twelve year old twins, was almost too much for Danny to bear. A card. It had flashed into being. The king smiled. That card meant one thing: Danny was going to open the door.

"You want me in there, don't you?" It was a hiss, snake-like, hating the king. Treason! Treason! Off with his head, Alice! Off with his head! Jervis Tetch…

"Oh yeah, big boy, daddy wants some sugar," the king mocked, and the guard was breathing hard now, wanting to kill. Wanting to murder. "Come and have me, I'll be good…" Pamela Isley…

"That's it, you sick fack!" spat Danny Wilkerson. The king braced himself.

"Don't be cold, Danny. Be a pal and come play a game with me. Trivia!" Aha! There it was. Edward Nygma. Yes, there it was. Oh, yes, there it was. Dame it, there it was. Yes, yes, and yes some more, there, there, there it was, it was there, right there, all around and everywhere! Edward Nygma! Edward Nygma! Scream it, everyone! Louder! LOUDER, DAME IT! His hands were positively groping himself at the sense of negative output, at the intoxicating feeling of animalistic defiance. Te guard's rage was his utter climax. Even as the bars to his cage slid open, Edward Nygma was pulsating, breathing hard. That feeling of romance before murder. That feeling of arousing pleasure before beating someone to death, before shooting them, before strangling them…yes, Edward, kill! Kill! KILL!

He was coming. Here he comes!

"I'm going to k-" were Danny's final screams. Edward Nygma…yes, Edward Nygma, not Pamela Isley, Jonathon Crane, Jervis Tetch, or Waylon Jones and yet Pamela Isley, Jonathon Crane, Jervis Tetch, and Waylon Jones sprung for the kill. Waylon Jones's hand wrapped around the nightstick and pulled it from Danny Wilkerson's grasp. Pamela Isley's hand stroked the man's hair affectionately as she…or was it he?...gave an almost flirtatious giggle. Jonathon Crane's presence smelled rank as the guard tried to step back, breathing in terror, wanting to flee, scarier than the thought of the grave was this king in the dark. And finally, Jervis Tetch's voice wrung through the darkness as the king began to hammer the nail.

"_What a regrettably large head you have! I would very much like to hat it!"_ THWACK! Scream. Blood? Yes, blood! LOTS OF BLOOD! OH JOY, maybe he was Waylon Jones!? "I'm going to crush your skull, your worthless wad of meat!" THWACK, THWACK! More and more blood, time to bathe in it. The hunt was at the ready, beautiful, it was poetry, lots and lots of poetry! Sing me a song, Annabelle Lee, as you die by the sea, by the sea! Oh, this was so romantic. Utter lust for the kill was coming off of him, every pore in his skin bleeding out the utter obsession with murder as if it were his own lover. So then he _was_ Pamela Isley? "Oh, baby, you've fallen to the floor. Why are you trembling? Is it me? It is, isn't it? How many tremble like that, when in my presence? How many shake like that, when swallowing that precious drink, the poison. Engulf it, baby. There's more where that came from. Let me show you. I'll join you down there. The dirty floor is so romantic!" He bent down over the shaking shadow, sobbing, it seemed, groveling in his own blood, the red paint that this artist had used for this wondrous display of craft. Arts and crafts had always been his favorite class when he was a small child. THWACK, THWACK! Danny was still. Danny was dead. Did the king know that? Did Edward Nygma know that? Riddle me this, riddle me that, what man died of blunt force trauma to the head? Him. Him! HIM! HIM! HIM! Yes, him, all him, no one but him, him, him! Dead, he's dead, yep, Edward Nygma killed him! More, gotta find more, oh, yes, but how to do so? Will it be Crane? Will he gas them and drive them mad before the killing blow? Will it be Freeze, shall he force them into one of the kitchen freezers and lock them in there for a few weeks with the setting put below? Oh, but the Joker! Giggly gas, ha ha ha ha ha! Where is it hidden? In intensive treatment, of course, under Dr. Cassidy's bookshelf. He knew it, the Joker knew it, but the Joker did not know that he knew it, no no no! Not ah, not one speck of knowledge, _cause I'm the king, baby, baby, and I'm going to rule with an iron fist, boy-o_!

Danny was dead. But the beginning of the question had not yet been asked. What was the question? The simple, clichéd, stereotype of them all: who am I? Edward Nygma paging…Edward Nygma paging…"I'm not sure, Eddie, who are you?

Lawrence? No. And yes. NO! NO! No, no, no, no, shut up!

Poison Ivy? Freeze? Joker? Harley? Croc? Bane? Hatter? WHO!? WHO!? Was he the Riddler?

_I think the answer is obvious, Eddie…yes._

"Yes is the answer?" the king asked.

_Is it?_

"Time to find out."


	3. Chapter 3

The halls are black, but he does not care. Dark is so beautiful. The misdeeds stay hidden. The blood is like the shadows, and who knows anything about it. It is there. It is a lonely black river. Gushy, sort of, messy dark red, but in reality, beautiful black, as all manner of things are for the king. The king likes the black. Yes, he does.

Riddle me that, riddle me this, who in their right mind would want to miss this? The answer is everyone. Because they are no one. Fack them, the Riddler says, for their lowness, their intent focus to stay below the superior king is an abomination upon the world. Poison them, whispers Ivy. No, no, freeze them, keep their preserved and in torment, screams the maddened Freeze. Off with their heads, suggests the Hatter, while the Scarecrow laughs and adds that they should do all three, poison, freeze, and decapitate them, after driving them insane by their own fears. The Riddler is dead. Where is he!? WHERE!? Where the Hessian is he!? I'll find you, you lazy son of a slug! I will facking find you! You're disgusting, and I hate you! So much, so facking much!

The song does not end. It grows, like a relentless tumor. THWACK! The dark shadow had moved into view around the corner, but now they're screaming, groveling on the floor after the night stick had belted the top of their head. Stop crying, doctor, stop your crying, now, NOW! THWACK! THWACK! Relentless, unending are her screams and his bludgeoning. He hates them. Hates them so much, and yet he loves them, because they remind him of himself, someone he both loves and hates. She finally lays still, and her blood flows stronger than that of Danny Wilkerson. Another day, another murder. What next? He can hear them coming. Darn it, they're coming fast! Her screams were the beacon to the flies, they're coming for it, attracted by the sweet honey of her torment. He bends down, and he kisses her gently on her dead lips. Tasty. Corpses treat him better than the living, it seems. The dead have such a beautiful stillness about them, as if they are lying there, waiting, watching, passionately enthralled by their entranced lover. He will stay a bit longer, a second or two, even though they are coming fast up the winding hall of the Intensive Treatment facility.

Shadows become more and more solid, until the moon rays through the sky windows illuminate the blue of their uniforms, against his own black and white, wrapped around his pale body, submitting him to their pleasure of torture. Oh, how he loves the idea. He will kill them. He quickly searches her body. Who was she? Does she have family? Not anymore, he smiles to himself. Ah, there it is. A stun gun, black and slightly rounded, the pinpoint of the nozzle deadly in the dark, like an alien form of knife, weaponry that can do a thousand pains. He jabs her body with it, a test on its own, and she jumps, jolted, but not to life, like the Frankenstein monster, but further into death, and the high setting begins the phase of cooking, and that smell he can only imagine, delicate, delicious, yummy, a friend doctor, she must simply be eaten, says Waylon Jones. But you're not Waylon Jones…you're Edward Nygma….shut up, Edward…yes Mr. Lawrence….yes Mr. Lawrence….

He is gone, running down the hallway from which he came, even as they come upon the body of one Doctor Sarah Cassidy, whom Edward had not recognized in the dim light…the very woman whose office key could have led him right to the Joker's secret stash of giggly gas, as the clown called it. Giggly, giggly! HA! HA! HA! "HA! HA! HA!" Oh no. Those last three laughs did not stay within the black confines of his mind. They came out, so loud, so clear, and darn it, here they come! They're running. They are going to beat me and shoot me and call me bad names, like inferior, and like demented, and like evil murdering man, BAD EDWARD! BAD! But I am not Edward, NO! SHUT UP, LAWRENCE! I'm Pamela Isley! No, I'm Victor Fries! No, I'm Jack Napier…or was it White…or does the Joker even have a name? NO, he does not. Because he is the Joker! And Pamela Isley is Poison Ivy, there is no Pamela! So then, there never was an Edward Nygma. Only the Riddler…but he is dead now, yes, and not coming back, no! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!

Here he goes, he is running, fast and faster and faster, er, er, er, er, er! Vrum, vrum! I'm a car, speeding fast, turbo engines! VRUM, VRUM! Whee! Down the Blue Wing, away from my pursuers! Uh oh! There is another guard ahead, he's coming this way. Oh, he's reaching for his night stick as he lays his eyes upon me, seeing me standing there in the middle of the hall, under the bright light hanging from the ceiling above, a night stick in hand, blood covering my black and white robes, for I am a king. The king. King. Yep, I am a king. Bow down before your superior, human, and I will kill you slowly. You want to die by my hand, yes? I will gift you. Here, have a death, I love you that much!

And now Edward Nygma is running, so fast that the guard has only seconds to react. The night stick flashes. CLANG! The clash of two swords, not night sticks. Edward…no, PAMELA! YES! He loves her. Red on red. He has to have her, will have her! Will have his way with her, because he is her, because he wants her power, to force those who oppose him to love him, to want him! He is going to take her, kill her on the spot. CLANG! The guard is thrown off balance. Oh no, he is going to die. The man stumbles against the wall, and Pamela Nygma strikes hard against his weapon, knocking it to the floor. Oh now, he is definitely going to die now, with that cloud clang echoing loudly on the stone floor, and oh what beauty there will be. Time to harvest! So many strikes against a vulnerable noggin, so many hard licks against a fragile brain. Brain damage, have a hit here, and one here, oh that thwack gets me every time.

He is going to lea you here, now, but first, Pamela Isley wants to wish you a happy death courtesy of her babies…no, my babies, because I'm her, right, not nasty Edward Nygma…oh Oppressor, where are you now? In your cave with your little rodents? Good. Stay there. Don't fly to Arkham tonight. Too much fun. Pamela kisses the guard's head. Nah, I'm straight, through and through. Yes, that is the thought, and I hae to spit that kiss out. BLUGH! There, all better, now for the real Pamela…but I AM the real one, where are these thoughts coming from?

Then it hits him. Oh, well of course, look at me. Look at all I have done tonight, all I am doing with every breath, this arousing feeling I get every time I kill. It is final! The answer. Is it here!? Is the answer to that final question here? The answer to the self, to who I am, to who Edward Nygma is!? WHY AM I USING THAT NAME!? I AM NOT NYGMA, JUST SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT THE HESSIAN UP!

He falls to his knees. "THE ANSWER!" he screams. "I KNOW THE ANSWER!"

So many hear him. So many are coming for him, and he is cornered. But he cares not, because he knows the answer. "I KNOW NOW! I UNDERSTAND! HA! I KNOW, I KNOW! I KNOW!"

"There he is!" They are coming, the guards with their guns and staffs. Doctors with syringes. Even some of the lowlifes under the king's grace are poking their heads out of their doors, those who had not woke during the brief fight with the guard, those who had not stood, fascinated by the murder that Edward Nygma had committed.

"THE ANSWER!" Edward Nygma screamed, throwing the staff at a nearby cell door, where it bounced off the glass of the door, scaring the inmate inside of the room, clattering to the floor beside its thrower. He picked it up again, gleeful. He is crazy. Crazy, crazy, crazy! He is the Joker. He is crazed beyond repair. But then, he is not the Joker, he is merely his own Lawrence. But he knows the truth. "I AM VICTOR! VICTOR ZSAAZ!"

He turns a head to face the oncoming hoard from behind.

"NYGMA!"

"And I want to kill again!" Victor Zsaaz screams, and he jumps to his feet, his eyes rolled into the back of his head. The staff goes flying. The guard in front of the crowd is not fast enough. He screams loudly as it sends him crashing onto the floor, tripping two nurses behind him. But they're almost upon him. They are not going to stop. Some of them have pistols raised. Zsaaz throws out his arms. "FIRE! BANG! BANG! You cannot kill a slave!"

What is a slave? He is the sweat of ability. He is the overseer of his own dedication. He is, in all manner of things, king. Yes, king. KING! KING! KING! Scream it all, children, sing of the king. Love me! Love me! He drops to his knees. The sedative enters his neck. But all is clear to him now. That the Riddler truly is dead. And all that remains…is Zsaaz. He He H


End file.
